THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY
To form one shape of aspect multiple
Divided in its single spell;
One spectre smooth and suave,
More horrible than any fear or active
doom,
Beckoning with its lewd malignant finger,
Beckoning, beckoning, to no pious tomb
Where pitiable memory might linger.
A creeping, living horror hems me in,
A masterpiece of sin!
Even my soul, inured to contemplate
The dreadful, the perverse design of Fate,
In many stories never meant to win
Applause of mortals or of gods, but
made
To choke man’s spirit in its shade,
And make him, in his pride and happiness, —
In virtue’s mantle and love’s seemly dress,
Immeasurably afraid.
The hour is on them—let its weight express
All blood, ali life, from the disastrous grape!
In. God, in mercy, there is no escape,
No anchor for distress.
The hour strikes mournfully upon the bell
Of the most awful precipice
That merges hell in hell.
There is deep silence in that dread abyss;
There is deep silence in the spheréd sun;
There is deep silence where the planets
run,
Il